Tag: MCU

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania Review: A Grim Start to Phase Five.

Being the first film in Phase Five of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it felt like there was a lot riding on Ant-Man: Quantumania going in. 
While there were some jems in Phase Four, Spider-Man: Far From Home in particular, the majority of that phase felt aimless and misguided, with way too much of a focus on humor.
Quantumania could have served as a new beginning for the MCU but, unfortunately, it is just more of the same, sometimes in the worst of ways.
Directed by Peyton Reed, the film follows Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) who, after playing a key role in reversing the snap in Endgame, is living a happy and successful life with his girlfriend Hope (Evangeline Lilly) and daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton). 
However, after Cassie somehow creates a portal to the Quantum Realm, the three of them, along with Hope’s parents Hank (Michael Douglas) and Janet (Michelle Pteiffer), are sucked inside.
Now in the Quantum Realm, the five have to find a way to escape, while being pursued by the MCU’s next big bad Kang the Conqueror, who Janet has a history with, which she constantly refuses to explain, creating a large amount of frustration for the audience.

Ant-Man must escape the Quantum Realm in this latest film.

Although Quantumania is one of the worst reviewed MCU movies, one thing it has been constantly praised for is Jonathan Majors’ performance as Kang and for good reason.
Majors is excellent as the Conqueror and the film does a fantastic job of building him up to be a threat… which is admittedly diluted by the end, due to the fact that he struggles to defeat Ant-Man.
It’s like if Thanos was defeated by Spider-Man in his first movie appearance.
He would just not be as threatening. 
Despite this, I am still interested in the character and what he will bring to the MCU going forward. 

Jonathan Majors is amazing as Kang.

Along with Kang, one thing that I heard a lot about before watching Quantumania was the humor, although for the opposite reason.
So many people were saying that the jokes were terrible and robbed many scenes of all tension.
Honestly though, for the first half hour to forty-five minutes, I was not having this issue.
Sure, there were a lot of jokes and not all of them were funny but I never found the humor to be insufferable. 
Then MODOK (Corey Stoll) showed up and I understood what everyone was talking about.
I do not say this lightly but MODOK is straight up one of the worst characters in all of the MCU.
Not only does the CGI for him look atrocious but he is also the subject of some of the most unfunny “jokes” I have seen in a long time.
I was literally face palming when awful MODOK “humor” kept interrupting the third act battle. 

MODOK should have been removed from the movie. Not only does he look terrible but the writing and attempts and comedy surrounding him all fail spectacularly.

Speaking of that third act battle, there are so many dumb tropes, like characters constantly removing their helmets, villains not killing the heroes when they have them dead to rights, and the ending seemingly concluding on an impactful note only to retcon it at the last moment.
The editing is also so poor by the end that it makes a lot of the action hard to follow.
As well as this, the final battle sees no resolution to any of the characters’ arcs for the simple reason that no character has an arc in this movie.
Well, except for MODOK but his is so abrupt and terrible that I once again had to facepalm in the theater.
As for Scott Lang, the film ends with him being exactly the same person he was in the beginning.
Also, despite the movie being named Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, it felt like Hope was barely in this. 
Hank Pym is just there as well and, while I did find Janet’s backstory with Kang to be interesting, it does not go anywhere by the end.
Cassie also represents a problem with the MCU lately and that is just how easy it is to invent futuristic tech.
I mean, in the first Iron Man, Tony Stark had to build his suit under intense pressure while being held captive by terrorists.
Now in Quantumania, we have a teenager just building a portal to the Quantum Realm in a basement, with their skills to do so not being established beforehand.

Cassie is suddenly a genius inventor in this film when I don’t recall her being established as one in the previous Ant-Man movies.

So, as you can see by my descriptions, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is a mess overall and a rather grim start to Phase Five.
While it does have some good qualities, most notably Jonathan Majors as Kang, the rest of the characters have no arcs, there is a lot of bad humor, and MODOK is the most insufferable comic relief character I have seen in a while.
I do have hope for Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume Three but, beyond that, I would say that the MCU is in trouble if it does not get its act together soon.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Review: An Emotional Tribute to Chadwick Boseman, Weakened by Future MCU Influences.

I really enjoyed the first Black Panther.
It provided a compelling story, with a great dynamic between its protagonist and antagonist, and made the country of Wakanda a character in its own right.
If Black Panther is not in my top ten MCU films then it certainly comes close.
So, obviously I was looking forward to the sequel from the moment I walked out of the theatre after seeing the first movie.
Most of all, I was looking forward to seeing how the story of Chadwick Boseman’s T’Challa would continue.
Unfortunately, as we all know, in August 2020, Chadwick Boseman passed away from colon cancer.
His tragic passing left director Ryan Coogler, and everyone else involved in the making of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, with the monumental task of paying tribute to Boseman’s legacy, while also crafting an interesting story without him.
For the most part, I believe they succeeded.
Indeed, Wakanda Forever does begin by honouring Chadwick Boseman by also honouring his character T’Challa.
The King of Wakanda passes away in the opening minutes of the film, and the weight of his legacy is felt immediately, with the following MCU logo being completely silent and only accompanied by footage of Boseman’s T’Challa.
It was a moving sendoff to both the character and the actor.

Boseman’s prescence is felt throughout the film, despite him not appearing, due to his tragic death.

From here, the film follows how Wakanda moves on from the death of their king, along with the consequences of the world now knowing about them and wanting their vibranium.
This leads Wakanda into the conflict with the hidden undersea civilization known as Talokan, lead by the the film’s antagonist Namor (Tenoch Huerta).
Namor is a compelling villain and he and the Talokan’s first scene is one of the scariest villain introductions in all of the MCU. 

Namor’s first scene is quite creepy.

This leads you to be fearful for the fate of the characters we came to care about in the first film, like Shuri (Letita Wright), Ramonda (Angela Basset), Okoye (Danai Gurira), M’Baku (Winston Duke) and Nakia (Luptia Nyong’o).
Shuri especially is struggling with the death of her brother and the new responsibilities that are heaped upon her shoulders as Wakanda draws closer to conflict with Namor and Talokan.
It is Ramonda and Okoye who stood out the most to me, though, because of the incredible performances from Angela Basset and Danai Gurira.
One emotional scene they share togethor is the best in the movie, in my opinion, based off their acting ability alone. 

Basset and Gurira did an excellent job portraying their characters’ emotions in this scene.

However, although all of this made Wakanda Forever a worthy sequel to Black Panther, there were a number of things holding it back, most of all the film’s reliance on setting up future Disney Plus shows and MCU films.
This is evident with the character of Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne), who is basically dropped into the story to set up her upcoming show, Ironheart; plot holes surrounding her need to be in this movie be damned.
Worst of all, though, is the suplot with Everett Ross (Martin Freeman) and Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), which felt like a gigantic waste of time, with its only point probably being to set Fontaine up for a future Thunderbolts movie.
As for Everett Ross, his decisions in this movie felt oddly strange with how he characterized in prior films, politically speaking. 

I am not sure that Ross’ depiction is completley accurate with how he is portrayed in Civil War and the first Black Panther.

The political decisions in Wakanda Forever are actually pretty hit or miss for me.
Sometimes I thought the characters were making good decisions, while other times I thought they were making bizarre ones.
Along with this, the CGI of the film is a bit questionable at times.
At least it never got as bad as it was in the third act of Black Panther, which is one of my few flaws with that first film.
It is the overreliance on setting up future stories that hinders Wakanda Forever the most, however; as it not only brings the story to a grinding halt at times but also takes away potential screentime from characters like M’Baku, who really needed it.

Wakanda Forever needed more M’Baku.

Overall, though, I would still say that Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is a good movie, despite its issues.
The character arcs of the Wakandan characters are solid, the acting is amazing, Namor is a great villain who I am interested to see more of and, most of all, the film does an excellent job paying tribute to the memory of Chadwick Boseman.
May he rest in peace.